The Green Bastard's Last Run
In game date: Tuesday, February 2, 2354 Narrator: Kenoshi Player: Heirofiend Location: Space, over Cehria 'Summary: '''The renegade android, Heironymous Grlszl, takes a starship with an illegal Omega Drive (a method of slower-than-light propulsion using the detonation of nuclear warheads) to the deserted planet, Cehria, and carries out one final mission of revenge against the pirates who were based there. Dropping multiple nuclear warheads on the surface of the already irradiated planet, he managed to annihilate the pirates' stronghold there. Confed ships jump into the system, having been chasing Heirofiend since he had started the chase in the Sol system days earlier, and they quickly form a blockade, demanding that Heirofiend surrenders. The android knows that he has no rights under Confed law, and he would be killed and disassembled, so he rushes the blockade, transmitting a final message of defiance before his ship is shredded apart by a volley of fire from the Confed ships. His message is transmitted, through the aid of various allies, across known space, starting a revolution against the Confed government that would grow much more violent in time. '''Log: ' The plan has gone well up to this point. So far as the ship has made it to the orbit of Cehria and avoided being shot down yet. The small fleet of Confed ships on your tail haven't arrived quite yet, and the hyena can enjoy a few moments of radio silence before the main act begins. The dead planet looms ahead, a dull tan orb that registers nothing in the radio frequencies. No satellites remain in orbit, they've already been shot down long ago...one would almost wonder why someone would bother visiting such a desolate place, were they not familiar with the history this planet has. A Lime Green Hyena, pitted and marked with scars, sits at a chair in his cargohold. 50 meters long, and fading into the dark cargohold on either side of him and fading into the darkness are welded steel racks, each one containing rows upon rows of soviet marked nuclear warheads. The cradles move, shiftin them around and shifting them towards the rear of the cargohold into the darkness. The green hyena flicks open his zippo lighter, lighting a cigarette and taking a slug off a bottle of gin before setting it on a table, where a vidscreen shows com channels and the ship's readouts. Beside that is a small recorder, with a red recording light. He speaks softly "...And Oi know not all of you will appreciate what I am going tew dew. This is me loif, and me purpose. Oi am not going tew bow down and let progress bury me. Oi will not let me enemies survive so long as Oi am, and oi refuse tew lie down and die at the hands of those bloddy confederates. Oi lived me loif by me own terms, and oi die by them." He speaks, reaching out and ending the recording. A few seconds pass, and he hits the 'transmit' button, sending the recording on private channel to Kenoshi. From there, he stands, taking another long drag of his cigarette and exhaling as he lifts up the vidscreen and walks towards the stairs leading up to the catwalk. As soon as the hyena climbs up to the catwalk the ship's sensors start sending out a warning....the first signs of radar signals emanating from the surface of that dead, scarred, silent planet, attempting to paint the ship. A chilling greeting that is all too familiar to anyone who has been here before...the precursor to the hypersonic harpoons that are usually soon to follow. Frighteningly fast, they are capable of destroying smaller ships, and capturing larger vessels and pulling them out of orbit. The sensors, of course, just show a massive dead area on the surface of the planet, no sign of where those signals could be coming from. An all too effective screen used by the pirates who have called this planet home for years, making them nearly impossible to trace, let along effectively fight. How many times before have people, including the Confederation, attempted to drive them out, only to find that the cost has been to great, and ultimately give up and leave them be. Heirofiend eyes the screen, then begins a light jog up into the fore corridor then into the bridge, grinning "I got yew, ya bloddy bastards!" He cackles, hopping through the portal and vauling over the cockpit seat and into it. He punches the screen in front of it, lighting it up, and begins shutting down systems. The thrust rockets begins dying off, as do signals within the ship as he takes the controls, and without slowing down his ship, begins turning the large vessel with it's enormous blast plate on the rear around and stabilizing so he's coasting backwards towards the planet and the deadzone. He begins aligning himself for reentry, but doesn't slow himself down, for the moment, he coasts backwards, and waits for the hits... It doesn't take long for the first hit to come. Predictably, the pirates below are very quick to target and shoot down any unrecognized ships that enter Cehria's orbital space, and you can feel the ship shudder as one harpoon impacts. Then another. Then another. The dull thuds vibrate through the frame, and soon afterwards you can feel the ship lurch as those powerful cables pull taut, trying to yank the ship right into the atmosphere. At its current speed and trajectory, the ship would hit hard, and likely break up burn quickly. Even as this happens your sensors flash a new warning....multiple ships jumping into the system, just light-seconds from Cehria. The Confed fleet, as their id signals indicate. A good dozen destroyers and varied corvettes. The longer you had been leading them on the chase, the more that eventually joined in. Transimssions start assailing you as soon as they arrive, sending out the same automated messages demanding that you surrender to them peacefully and turn yourself in, or risk being destroyed. They are well out of shooting range at the moment, just leaving the Cehria pirates to worry about at the moment. Heirofiend's eyes flash to the scanners as the confed ships begin arriving, and he clears his throat, and says "You're too late, wankahs...oi already won..." He says, grinning, and presses a button on the local com channel, and then turns to an old and archaic looking cassete tape boombox, and hits playing. In the background, a punk rock tune starts to play across the com channels, drowning out the warning sent his way, with the voice of the hyena himself singing out anarchy and the destruction of authority. He then turns, flipping several more switches, and the rear blast plates of his ship bloom open, and begin raining warheads out behind the ship towards the direction the harpoons are towing him. He grabs the screen, using his fings to pan out the view around his ship as the warheads rain towards Cehria. He hits a button, and it begins recording "This is war. Oi make war with mine enemy and watch as they fall before me!" The pirates down below, in their mobile harpoon platforms, can only look up in shock as the distant ship, so many miles in the sky, starts bombs. A lot of scurrying commenses below in that dead zone, but one really can't run away far enough to avoid the effects of nuclear warheads. A lot of them. A virtual cloud of warheads rain down from the tail section of the bulky ship, glowing as they hit atmosphere and drop towards their targets. The Confed ships close in, coming into orbit around the outskirts of Cehria's highest orbit, refusing to cross the very imaginary line that they had established not long ago, forbidding anyone to travel to or from that cursed planet. More transmissions squawk over your comm, reminding you of the treaties in place with local governments, reminding you of the rules against using nuclear weapons on planetary targets, all rules that the Confed itself would quickly disregard if any of its own interests were at stake. Of course none of that can be heard now over the blaring music, music that is shared with each and every one of the purusing ships, totally helpless to stop you from carrying out your one-man act of war. Heirofiend continues to watch this, the record function still on. By now, this should be broadcasting through the inner colonies. Sooner still, it'll reach confed space. He speaks above the music "This is a terror that no man has dared face. One that has brought the death of thousands." He pans the view out to the confederate ships "And these confederates are heah tew kill me. They wont come closah, knowing that they too would be pulled in. And as soon as oi move from this spot, me loif is forfeit. Oi am an android. Oi have no roits. And oi took this action against the Cha'Sha'Tar pirates on cehria not out or order, but me own volition." He moves the camera to his face "Oi did it out of passion. And love. And conviction, and defending the things oi believe in. The moment these wankahs get me, as an android, all of these things oi feel will make me no less an android, no matter how cognitive or real oi am. They will just as soon kill me and then study me to see how oi tick tew use in their own fecking war. Oi wont let them." He says, turning the camera back to look at the ground on Cehria "Oi live this loif of mine on me own terms. And oi die for them, by me own choice. As an android, a talking toastah, oi choose death in the intrest of none but meself. For all oi have left, these bastards already destroyed." Instantaneous transmissions carry your speech, along with the music, out over the vast distnaces to other systems, and are rebroadcasted from station to station. Media outlets pick up on them and rebroadcast them over news feeds that reach far across known space. While Confed stations do their best to stifle the signals from spreading, the many pirate media outlets on Ceres subvert those efforts and make sure that they are heard, even on Earth itself. The news chatter will surely go on for days, weeks, and longer afterwards...whether Heirofiend is condemned as a dangerous, rogue android, or praised as a hero for bucking the system....the debate will rage on with a new energy that it hasn't seen in a long time. On Cehria below, the pirates can only scatter in terror, hoping that they can somehow survive this as they've survived so many efforts to kill them before. They can see the glowing streaks in the sky as those bombs drop, those bright fireballs growing exponentially brighter as they explode, and bathe the skies in nuclear fire, reaching down to the surface with a mighty blow that incenerates and pulverizes indiscriminately, everything that is unfortunate enough to be caught out in the open. From space the multiple bright specks of the explosions can be seen, scattered widely across that dead zone, assailing sensors with wild radio signals. Hell has once again been unleased upon a planet that has seen more than its fair share of torment over the years. Once again the sky shrieks and the ground burns. Heirofiend laughs low, and deep in his chest, then says "Oi am not afraid to die! Oi can't voice how happy oi am. This is the loif and path oi walk. This is the talk oi talk! Hundreds of thousands of dead died at the hands of these people, and oi was the only one with the gall tew put a stop tew it. Millions are dying. Drowned out by me own music on the coms. Listen to those words yew hear. Guard them well. As humanity, the only thing that separates us from the real monstahs is the voice to say 'enough!' when the toim is roit..." As the bombs begin to lessen down to the reserve racks, he opens the blast shield moreso, and begins detonating nukes behind his ship to begin piloting himself towards the confed fleet, which he has his camera pointed at. He begins turning up the music until it drowns out all, and just behind it, he can be heard, singing along with it... The ship is much lighter now, with the majority of its deadly payload dispersed to the planet below. The tethers holding the ship are severed, the harpoon launchers having been blasted into ruin along with their operators. The powerful kick of acceleration pulls the hyena back into his seat and the ship lurches away from Cehria's gravitational grip. Below there is a sea of fire on the surface, what little left there that can burn does, and the desert sands are melted into glass. The radio silence of the dead zone disintigrates as the jammers have been destroyed, and the cacophany of radio signals from the planet radiate out into space. The natural noise of the planet, the massive blooms from the last bombs to detonate, and the frantic radio chatter between the surviving pirates that is all too quickly cut short. The Confed fleet waits there in high orbit, their targeting sensors sweeping over the bomb-propelled vessel and locking on. More automated transmissions, along with a few terse live signals, warn the ship to stand down or be destroyed. At this rate of acceleration it will only be a matter or minutes before they'll be within shooting range, as they try to remind you, though the signals are drowned out by the throbbing music and loud singing that causes the cockpit to vibrate with each bass beat. Heirofiend leans back in his chair, watching himself approach the confed fleet "Oi have no regrets. Oi did this because these people took everything oi had tew give. Me home, me futah, everything oi had built towards, broken down, disassembled and taken. A talking toastah would be one tew lay down and die. Tew follow their orders. Oi have no orders but me own. Oi love, oi dream, oi have loved real women. Oi may be a machine, but OI AM HUMAN!" He yells out resoundingly at the end, leaving the rest to the blasting music as the confederate ships fill the screen. The ship crosses into the firing line, still accelerating fast, as its pilot broadcasts his defiance to everyone who would listen. More than the Confed fleet would like to admit....still not aware of just how may eyes are watching them at the moment as they face down this lone ship. The radio transmissions ordering you to stand down suddenly go quiet, and a multitude of gun barrels start flashing, bright tracers marking the paths of hundreds of hypersonic artillery shells, each one as big around as a man's fist. Seconds later they start slamming into the hull of Heirofiend's ship, each hitting with a resounding boom as they impact and fragment, torturing the heavy armor plating like a thick sheet of aluminum foil trying to hold up under a hailstorm. It holds for a few seconds then starts shredding, and the entire frame of the ship starts distorting as numerous internal explosions start tearing it apart. Explosive decompression empties the cargo hold, and the cockpit itself is filled with a whistling shriek as numerous holes that are suddenly there let out the atmosphere inside. Pounding music suddenly rises up in pitch, almost comically so, before going silent as the air becomes too thin to carry sound. Heirofiend is hardly aware of the wounds opening up all over his body, caused by fast-moving shrapnel, before another shell flies in through the viewport and explodes, finishing the job. That lone, defiant ship is abruptly silenced in the hail of fire, exploding into a bright cloud of plasma and metal fragments, and vanishing from view as those pieces scatter through the blackness of space. The radio transmission ends, and all the people viewing the spectacle from across known space are left in a stunned silence, not quite sure what to make of what they just saw. The Confed fleet shuts down their guns and starts to break, seeing that there isn't enough left behind of the ship or its pilot to bother collecting, and they begin to send off their reports to their superiors, that one crisis is over, but a diplomatic one has started. Some light seconds away, the dead planet of Cehria goes silent again, becoming a monument to yet more lives lost to sudden violence. The ghosts of many previous generations have new company, and welcome them as only they know how. Welcome home.